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The three journalists were operating a drone near the town of Al-Zahra.
Abdel Raouf Shaath, shown working in Rafah in 2023, was one of three journalists killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Jan. 21, 2026, 1:11 p.m. ET
Israeli forces killed at least 11 people in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Gaza health officials said, including three Palestinian journalists who the Israeli military said were flying a drone.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, a labor union, said the three men were documenting the “suffering of civilians in displacement camps.” The Israeli military said they were operating a drone that was “affiliated with Hamas” a…
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The three journalists were operating a drone near the town of Al-Zahra.
Abdel Raouf Shaath, shown working in Rafah in 2023, was one of three journalists killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Jan. 21, 2026, 1:11 p.m. ET
Israeli forces killed at least 11 people in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Gaza health officials said, including three Palestinian journalists who the Israeli military said were flying a drone.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, a labor union, said the three men were documenting the “suffering of civilians in displacement camps.” The Israeli military said they were operating a drone that was “affiliated with Hamas” and that its forces believed it posed a threat.
The Israeli military said the details of the incident were under examination.
The three journalists were identified as Abdel Raouf Shaath, Mohammad Salah Qishta and Anas Ghneim by the journalists’ union. One of those journalists, Mr. Shaath, had been a regular freelancer for the French newswire Agence France-Presse.
The Egyptian Relief Committee, a state-backed group providing aid in the Gaza Strip, said in a statement that Mr. Qishta had been documenting the organization’s relief efforts. The journalists’ union said they had been driving a car in the central town of Al-Zahra when the three journalists were targeted.
Last week, the Egyptian Commitee began housing residents in a shelter there as part of a plan to support displaced people in Gaza.
Gazan airspace is under the complete control of the Israeli military, which closely tracks even commercial drones that lift off in the territory.
Wednesday’s killings were the latest in what has been an extremely deadly conflict for Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Israel has barred foreign journalists throughout the war and continues to do so three months into its cease-fire with Hamas.
As of early January, the Committee to Project Journalists reported that Israeli forces had killed at least 206 journalists and media workers in Gaza since the start of the war.
International law says journalists, like all civilians during war, cannot be considered military targets if they are conducting independent reporting.
At times during the conflict, the Israeli military has deliberately attacked and killed Palestinian reporters it accused of belonging to Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. Several were employees of Al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned broadcaster, which called the allegations baseless.
In August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an Israeli strike that killed five journalists at a Gaza hospital a “tragic mishap.”
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.
Pranav Baskar is an international reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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